All That Glitters
by BeGodlyBeLynn
Summary: A series of vignettes about the characters in the Borderlands universe and how they deal with the world around them. Chapter 2: Encounter - Lilith and Mordecai meet each other for the first time in less-than-ideal circumstances.
1. Letters

_**"For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'it might have been.'" -John Greenleaf Whittier**_

If there were three things that Mordecai valued above all else, they were undoubtedly Bloodwing, his sniper rifle, and the letters Lilith sent him-not necessarily in that order.

After he left Sanctuary, it became something of a ritual for him to wake up, feed Bloodwing, clean his rifle, and read her letters. They weren't love letters, but he was hoping, so he held on to them. She wasn't the most eloquent of writers, but it didn't matter to him as much as the sweet curve of her penmanship and her scent lingering on the paper and the bittersweet knowledge that she was still with him, somehow, because of the letters, the menial contact that somehow meant so much. Sometimes he would taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Lilith to love him as he loved her, but the letters were mostly chatty and elusive on the matter of love. She signed them with "Love", but he knew better.

Still, a man could dream.

He always wondered what she was doing, or what she might be thinking. Certainly, she wasn't thinking of him much, although he wished that she would. She cared enough to write the letters, but writing was a mindless endeavor for him and he couldn't think of why they might be something more to her. He sometimes wrote back to her, but not always. She, on the other hand, was always punctual. Two letters a week, always, and without fail.

Whenever she wrote about the others, he had to wonder if she still liked Roland. Seeing her with him had pained him more than he'd cared to admit, and he had tried his best to convince himself that it was only a fling, that she was not emotionally vested in him, that perhaps her affections lay elsewhere, but it was a notion that had faded as the days went on. Now, in light of the crushing changes that had befallen them all, he wondered if she still felt the same way.

He wished he knew why he loved her so much. Above all, he wished that he hadn't been so goddamn _scared_. He remembered one night in Old Haven, when they had still been Vault Hunters in every sense of the word, when they had been alone on a rooftop with the Crimson Lance shrieking at them below. He remembered her fear, he remembered how he had saved her, and he remembered how she had grabbed his hand and would not let go. He remembered wishing that he could have taken her into his arms and held her close. He remembered kissing her good-night, but what he really should have done was promise that everything would be okay and tell her how much he cared. He should have risked it.

Whenever he read the letters, Mordecai thought of new things that he should have done.


	2. Encounter

Lilith was in over her head—again.

She ducked her head, cursing under her breath as she heard and felt the clatter of bullets against the flimsy sheet of metal that served as her cover. She was sweating, dizzy from intense heat and blood loss, and struggled to apply pressure to a gash that didn't seem to stop with shaking fingers. She was a fool to have ventured here alone, and she knew it. Too late.

She growled in frustration and slapped her rifle, as if abusing it would somehow coax bullets back into her gun. A clip of useless submachine gun ammo lay next to what used to be her SMG but now lay in pieces on the ground, cold reminders that she was probably going to end up as broken as the gun.

Not for the last time, Lilith cursed her so-called guardian angel. If it was so imperative that she find the Vault, then why leave her to die here when her final goal was still so far away? Oh, how she wished she had someone to back her up. As much as she liked to boast about her alien powers and her skills, she knew that her words were far from the truth. The truth was that she'd been out of practice for far too long. She was not the Siren she'd been when she'd left Prometheus; she was not the _woman_ she'd been when she'd left Prometheus. She'd tragically overestimated her skills and now she regretted every minute of it. She had neglected her body and now it was reaping its revenge.

No amount of cursing, shouting, or angry rock throwing could quite change her situation. Eventually, Lilith slumped back down and accepted that these bandits were never going to run out of ammo, that nobody was coming for her, and that maybe they'd make her death a quick one. She lay back and waited for them to realize that she'd run out of bullets a long time ago.

The ear-splitting screech of a mystery creature filled her ears next and she shrieked, too as pain shot through her temple at the sudden noise. What she heard next were panicked screams from the men on the opposite side of her flimsy barricade and the tearing of flesh by something very light and sharp. The clatter of bullets against her cover abruptly stopped and Lilith carefully peeked up from her hiding place to see a falcon attacking a bandit's face, sending blood flying. Its owner was not so far off, shouting praise at the bird.

She recognized the newcomer immediately as the wiry man on the bus with the beard and the knife. He was now brandishing a revolver and fired it as he ran, killing with deadly precision. Soon, the many voices she'd known to be bandits tapered off into silence. Lilith remained frozen, unsure of whether to run, hide, or show herself. She wasn't sure whether any of those options would ensure her survival. She could only pray that he would move on, so that she could loot the bodies and flee back to Fyrestone with her tail between her legs. To her dismay, he didn't.

Her eyes widened in fear as she listened to his footsteps draw nearer. If he was shooting to kill, she was done for. She was probably dead no matter what he wanted. Maybe he hadn't seen her? She flattened herself against the sheet of metal that had become her temporary home, palms slick with sweat. She was in over her head.

A shadow loomed over her and she screamed in terror, grabbing the first thing her hands could find and pointing it upwards. The man froze, his revolver aimed at her face, but he relaxed a little too quickly and lowered it slightly.

"Who are you?" she demanded, trying to sound menacing, but her voice was a frightened squeak.

"I'm the guy who saved your ass," he replied.

"It didn't need saving."

"Right." He looked skeptical. "I suppose that's why you're bleeding out in the Pandora sun with a broken SMG."

"I can still kill you," she threatened.

"Not with that," he remarked, indicating the gash on her arm.

Lilith followed his gaze to where blood was caked on her skin and on the floor. He was right. She felt so light headed from the heat and the blood loss, and she was so weak that she probably couldn't have phased a fingernail with every fiber of her being.

"What do you want?" she demanded, but her voice was trembling.

He laughed at her. She scowled fiercely at him, rage and frustration simmering through the haze of exhaustion at his disrespect. She was a Siren, god dammit, and he was just a scrawny kid with an eagle. She'd show him.

He reached out to tug the gun from her hands. "And what the hell were you planning on doing with _this_?" he asked, his voice reflecting equal parts disbelief and amusement.

"Don't—_touch_—me—" She curled her hand into a fist and angled it at his face, but he was faster and grabbed her wrist as it came towards his shoulder. He twisted it behind her back and she cried out in pain, unable to stop tears.

She was so tired, so done, with everything—the skag gully and the heat and the solitude and everything else she'd endured since she'd stepped off the bus. If she'd been in her right mind, she might have stubbornly held onto her pride until she bled out or he left, whichever came first. Now, she could only manage three words.

"Please help me."

"All you had to do was ask," he grunted, releasing his painful hold on her wrist. He pulled her to her feet and slung her arm over his shoulder. "We're going back to Fyrestone, I think," he said. "Don't pass out."

She passed out.


	3. Vigil

**WARNING: If you haven't finished the game, don't read this. This entails a pretty heavy spoiler imo.**

They called him a hero, but they didn't know anything.

They said things about him, but there was really nothing to say.

Lilith sat cross-legged in front of Roland's grave, staring at the slipshod engraving in the slate before her. To her eyes, though, there was no grave, only the name on it hovering in space.

She had brought flowers, but they lay in tatters now, strewn across the dirt. They meant nothing. If anything, the flowers only served to remind her that their love had been doomed from the start. So beautiful and so painfully fragile was it that she could not quite fathom it ending any differently than how it did.

The thought was of no comfort to her. Lilith remembered when, after New Haven, she'd been told that their emotions had to be sacrificed for the good of the people. She remembered her reaction, unbridled and angry, remembered how she'd screamed and cried and cursed his name. It was pathetic in hindsight, but at least she'd done something.

Lilith thought of Frostburn Canyon and how she'd called him down to tell him about her connection with Eridium. She remembered how weak she'd felt, how scared she'd been, and how desperately she'd wanted for him to comfort her. She remembered how she'd been reduced to a nervous wreck under his gaze, and how his cool stare tore at her insides and made her wish for the Roland who looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She remembered watching him leave, but what she should have done was pull him close and take off his clothes and search for his heart in the layers.

If she'd known, she would have risked it. She had thought once that nothing was worse than rejection, but she knew now that the only thing worse than rejection was regret. Guilt and grief tore at her chest and she wished that she could rip her heart out and bury it next to his so that they could be together one last time, but she had lost the strength. There was a hollow feeling in her chest and she wondered if she already had, and then she realized that it was gone because she'd given it to him three years ago and he hadn't lived long enough to give it back.

The maelstrom of emotions boiling inside her threatened to overwhelm her and Lilith lay down on the dirt over Roland's grave, trying to imagine a heartbeat that wasn't there and trying to find warmth that had died but most of all longing to hear a voice that she knew was gone, gone forever. She wished that she could think of what she wanted him to say to her, but then she realized that she would be okay with him telling her that he hated her if it just meant that she could hear his voice one last time.

It dawned on her, eventually, how absurd this was, and it was hard to imagine that just six years ago she had been such a selfish, arrogant girl with ice in her heart. In a way, she hated what she had become because old Lilith would never have been reduced to this emotional wreck and old Lilith would not be lying next to the grave of her dead lover, wishing for pointless nothings. She realized that she was that girl, the one that old Lilith hated, the vulnerable bleeding heart who cried when people died and fell so deeply in love that she didn't know if she could climb out again. Always have a plan, old Lilith used to say, but she didn't have one now. Her old self would be ashamed to see her today.

But none of it mattered, she thought as she reached out to touch the spot on the dirt where his head surely lay. Old Lilith was gone forever, and so too was Roland.


	4. Distance

Tonight, Lilith was lonely.

Brick had left Sanctuary a week ago on Slab business and Mordecai had left with the Vault Hunters a few days ago to exact bloody revenge on Hyperion at the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve. Lilith had been tempted to follow him on that one, if only to see him in action again, but she was stopped by the look in Gaige's eyes. He had to do this without her, she realized, and with a heavy heart she stayed behind.

She understood them, Gaige and Mordecai, the two misunderstood outsiders in their little band of misunderstood outsiders. She didn't always like what she understood, but she understood nonetheless. She understood when Gaige needed to let some anger out, and she understood when Mordecai had to do things alone without her help. She understood that Brick's head-crushing business in Thousand Cuts had nothing to do with her. So she accepted it. And so she waited here, alone, debating whether or not to return to Frostburn Canyon and kill some Bloodshots for old times' sake. She doubted any of them were still alive. The other Vault Hunters had decimated the place first when they'd come to find her, and again when they'd gone to investigate her special cult. There was no more joy in Frosburn Canyon, it seemed.

And so Lilith, whose life never stood still, patiently waited for her boys to return.

Days seemed to turn into months and years. Lilith checked her calendar a few times, if only for the sake of checking, and realized to her chagrin that only a few days had passed-not even a week since Mordecai had gone.

She didn't even notice that she was only counting the days since _Mordecai's _departure, and not Brick's. Not at first, anyway.

The realization was not a surprise. She had never lied to herself about her own feelings and she didn't lie about them now. She had always looked at Mordecai and wondered vaguely if something was there. She had always wished that they could spend more time together so that she could find out. She sometimes stared in jealousy at Bloodwing and wished that he would love her like he loved his bird. They were things that might forever remain a mystery, and things that she tried to leave behind her when she found Roland. Now Roland was gone, and her emotions were like severed thresher tentacles: without an owner and reaching out for something new to hold on to.

Lilith never knew how old Mordecai was. She'd never bothered to find out, because it didn't matter. In a world where people dropped dead at all walks of life, age was irrelevant. Age was just a number. Age fell away to passion.

It also fell away to loneliness.

She had thought of that night in Old Haven when she and Mordecai had been Vault Hunters themselves, in every sense of the word, with the Crimson Lance howling for their blood and the two of them trapped on a rooftop with precious little ammo and a bird with a broken wing. She remembered her terror and she remembered his embrace, but she had always tried to forget how _safe _she had felt in his arms. In retrospect, it had seemed wrong, but it had felt so _right_.

The thoughts terrified her whenever she was with Roland. She cared about the man, she really did, but she knew also that she had never truly been his to keep. No amount of tears shed over him, no stolen moments or wayward brushes of the hand could make her forget Old Haven. When Roland died, it had almost been a relief.

And she should have hated herself for thinking this way; she knew that Mordecai probably would if he knew. She didn't know if she would ever tell him. She didn't know if she could. She didn't lie to herself, but she could lie to other people with a clear conscience.

God, she was messed up. Probably even more so than Tannis.

So much for sanity.

Later, Axton came back to Sanctuary alone, his hands filthy and his eyes downcast. She knew that look. She sat him down and made him a cup of tea.

"Where did you go?" she asked.

"Thousand Cuts," he answered glumly. "I went up to the bunker."

Lilith nodded, frowning a little. She had always guessed, but she'd never dared to believe. "What were you doing there? I hate to pry, but I'm curious."

"Went to find Angel," he said. "I wanted to bury her."

He didn't say anything more, but she understood. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

Axton shook his head and was silent, quietly lapping at his tea but never quite drinking it. Lilith watched him, thinking. She remembered when Axton and the others had returned to Sanctuary after the Wilhelm debacle, and she'd cursed Angel for being a traitor. She remembered the look in his eyes. He'd looked like a kicked puppy, all sad and hurt and refusing to believe that they'd been sold out by their guardian angel. She had guessed, but she'd never dared to believe. It had seemed preposterous to her, to fall for the voice of an AI, but hey-maybe Axton had been-was-particularly lonely. She couldn't fault him for that.

"I wish I'd said something," he blurted suddenly, his knuckles white on the cup.

Lilith cast him a look, her eyes sad. Old Lilith would have laughed at him, but she knew how he felt. Dead lovers, far-off lovers, unattainable lovers-she'd been there, sometimes in all three places at once, and it sucked.

When it became clear that Axton needed his time alone, Lilith took her leave of him. She climbed up to the roof of the headquarters, wondering if she was the only person in this entire goddamn city who wasn't happy about being alone.

Suddenly, irrationally, a terrifying image appeared in her head, one where she was older and kneeling at the grave of someone else held dear. Older Lilith produced a wreath of flowers and laid it on the someone's grave, biting back tears, and present Lilith knew immediately who she was grieving for.

It was _Mordecai_.

The thought of him dying suddenly terrified her. It wasn't so much the knowledge of his inevitable passing that did it so much as it was the realization that she had never told him what she'd needed to tell, and that he could very well be dead the next day and that if he died without ever knowing, she'd never forgive herself. It was wrong, it was crazy, but _dammit_, she was not going to make herself regret holding her peace. It had seemed so rational before, to hold her tongue, but now all reason went out the window. Perhaps loneliness had done it. Perhaps Roland had done it. But most of all, Lilith knew that if she ever had to go through what Axton was enduring now, she could not take it. She could not bear the idea of knowing that the thing she had desired most had been so close, and had gone without her being able to make a grab at it. She would not stand for it.

Lilith never knew how old Mordecai was. She'd never bothered to find out, because it didn't matter. It still didn't matter. What mattered now, above all else, was that he return now so that she could find him and have her day in court. His verdict did not matter so much as her decision did-and her own decision had been made.

When Mordecai returned after what seemed like an eternity, Lilith was the first to greet him. And although he was covered with blood and probably in a foul mood, she ran up and hugged him, nearly knocking him off his feet, oblivious to everything in the world but him. She didn't say anything, but he must have heard something, because he dropped his rifle and hugged her, too.

Over his shoulder, Lilith caught Gaige's eye. Her expression didn't change, much, but she could see the faintest trace of a smile and a knowing glint in her eye. Gaige understood.

Mordecai didn't understand, not yet, but he would. Soon.

And that was all that mattered.


End file.
